


down to the bone

by inlovewithnight



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Fusion - Gideon the Ninth, Gen, Gideon the Ninth Spoilers, Life Partners, Magic, Soldiers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 22:54:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22005796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: Sid is a necromancer, and Jack is his cavalier. One flesh, one end, in the Emperor's service.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	down to the bone

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fusion with Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth; however, I didn't have the book at hand when I wrote it, so it may not be perfectly canon-accurate to that. Necromancer-cavalier partnerships should be a fusion for every fandom, though. Lots of feelings there!

_One flesh, one end_ was all very good and powerful in theory, Jack thought, but in practice, it was a real pain in the ass. 

Same with the glory of fighting the Emperor’s wars. He was pretty over all the romance of that, too. His back hurt, and his armor had a distinct hole in it over his left thigh, and he was about six minutes from knocking his partner unconscious just so the man would _sleep_.

Said partner, the most faithful and dedicated Necromancer of the Eighth House, Sidney Crosby, had been raising skeletons from bone shards for hours now, trying to muster one that could perform the ticky-tacky little task he wanted. It wasn’t working. Jack had noted the correlation between how frustrated Sid was and how ineffective the skeletons were; Sid, however, had not. Apparently.

Jack peered through the crack in the bricked-up window that was their only view of the war zone outside their makeshift bunker. Everything was still awful. “Sid, just get some sleep already.”

“I’m busy.”

“It’s not going to work unless you get some sleep.”

“It _is_ going to work. I’m going to _make_ it work.”

“You’re going to make a clumsy mistake from being tired, and raise something that kills both of us.”

Jack can feel Sid’s glare, even while still looking at the horror outside. “I’m not a _child_ , Cavalier.”

Ah. They’re using titles, then. “My apologies, Necromancer. I won’t presume to comment again.”

Sid sighs, the sound filtered through the clatter of yet another set of bones collapsing to the floor. “Don’t be like that.”

Jack continues staring out the window, demonstrating his commitment to not commenting again.

“Jack.”

Nope.

“Jack!”

Not gonna.

“ _Jack_!”

“ _What_?”

Sid’s voice takes a distinct turn toward petulance. “I hate it when you ignore me.”

Jack turns around slowly, letting the full force of a decade-plus spent fighting the Emperor’s glorious wars settle into his gaze. “I would _never_ ignore you.”

Sid stares at him for a moment, and Jack meets his eyes, knowing this is what his partner needs to reassure himself that Jack isn’t going anywhere. Jack is his cavalier. They’re in this together, not just for the long haul but until the very end. They will die together, out here, in the Emperor’s name, unless Sid is exactly as good as he thinks he is and they survive long enough to return to the Eighth House, also in the Emperor’s name, which they will glorify forever.

Finally, Sid nods a little and relaxes, looking down at the skeletal remains on the floor. “I guess I’m not going to get anywhere with this without some sleep, huh?”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you.” Jack gives himself a few seconds to savor the victory—he doesn’t win one over Sid often enough to not _enjoy_ it—before he offers his own goddamn life up on a platter, like he always does. “Or you could take the extra out of me.”

Sid puffs up in outrage, like Jack knew—hoped— _knew_ he would. That’s not relief sliding hot and sour down the back of Jack’s throat; it’s the satisfaction of being proven correct. Probably. “Of course I’m not going to take it out of you just for _this_. Jack!”

“I’m your cavalier,” Jack reminds him, his training holding his voice steady despite the panicked screaming that still started in his head after all these years whenever he had to offer himself up. “It’s literally what I’m here for.”

The training young cavaliers of the Eighth House went through to be ready for what their House’s particular necromancy asked of them—serving as walking batteries of energy that could be tapped at will, with no sense of self or care for what it would do to them—was brutal, but still didn’t come close to the terror of handing your life over to your partner over and over again, on every battlefield.

“Don’t say that.” Sid dusts his hands off and goes to the corner where they stashed their bedrolls. “You’re here to fight by my side in service to the Emperor. The other thing is…”

Jack waits for him to finish that thought. This should be good.

“It’s not the point,” Sid says finally, which is better than some of the ways he’s answered in the past, like when he said that tapping Jack’s life energy was _incidental_ and Jack punched him in the mouth. Not good cavalier behavior, but as far as he was concerned, fully justified.

Sid lays out the bedrolls in silence, and Jack signals a truce by digging out their rations and giving the packets a quick snap to active the heating packs and make them edible. They sit cross-legged on their bedrolls, side by side close enough that their shoulders brush against each other. The war rages on outside.

**

In the morning, Sid gets his fussy skeleton right on the third try. Jack almost cracks his head open on the window bricks when Sid whoops in triumph.

They pack up and leave their little bunker, the skeleton marching along a pace behind Sid and to the side, just like Sid positions himself off Jack’s advance. They cut along the Emperor’s line, signaling other necro-cavalier pairs as they pass, weaving their way between skeletons holding behind-the-lines posts and supply dumps.

“You’re sure this thing can do it?” Jack asks, casting a dubious look back at the skeleton. It’s as vacant and awkward as any of them, moving clumsily but keeping pace with them. The Eighth isn’t known for its finesse with skeletons; Sid is better than most of their House, but it’s a low bar.

“Positive.” Sid breaks stride to toss a handful of bone shards, which burst into full-sized femurs and set off a tripwire. Jack ducks and covers through the subsequent explosion, as does Sid, but their skeleton companion stands there and gets itself a heavy coating of dust.

“Thanks for that,” Jack mutters. He _does_ appreciate not getting his leg blown off by finding the tripwire himself too late, but on the other hand clearing those things is _his_ job.

“Don’t pout.” Sid jerks his chin forward and Jack takes the hint, getting back to his feet and leading them the rest of the way toward their destination. 

It’s a power station that the Emperor’s troops desperately need access to, but that’s booby-trapped to beyond and back. They’ve advanced enough that it’s securely in their territory, but that doesn’t mean they can _use_ it. Nobody else from the troops of the Eighth deployed on this utterly forsaken planet has the skill to put together a bomb-defusing skeleton except Sid. And it’s still taken him all these days holed up in the bunker.

And they still don’t actually know if it’s going to work, because they’re crouched behind a burned-out transport, with the skeleton standing behind them staring blankly ahead. “Are you ready?” Jack asks, squinting at the wires and plastique stuck all over the power station. “And please tell me you’re confident this is going to work.”

“I’m always confident, Jack.” Sid crawls up next to him, studying the lay of the ground. He lifts his hand and gestures slightly, calling the skeleton forward. It lumbers past them, moving toward the power station with the single-mindedness of its kind. Jack shifts away from Sid, drawing his sword and turning so he can cover Sid’s blind spots while his necromancer steers the skeleton through defusing the bomb.

Sid is utterly silent, which Jack never fails to find unnerving. He glances down at him periodically, watching Sid’s face get more red and sweat start to run down from his hairline to drip off his nose and chin. Sid’s brow is furrowed, his hands twitching as he guides the skeleton’s work. This was the tricky part, what had taken so long in the bunker: being able to control the movements so minutely. 

“Fuck,” Sid whispers, and Jack moves without any need for thought. He knows that tone—that’s Sid feeling drained faster than expected, hitting his reserves harder than he thought, because Sid is convinced he’s superhuman and doesn’t have limits like the rest of them.

That’s why a necromancer needs a cavalier. That’s where Jack comes in.

Jack drops to his knees beside Sid, giving one last look around the area. “We’re clear for now, Sid,” he says, sliding his sword back into its scabbard and shaking his right glove off. He offers Sid his hand. “Just do it, don’t argue with me. We need to get this done.”

“I’ll make it up to you.” Sid grabs his hand, skin to skin, fingers tangled together, and Jack closes his eyes, bracing himself against the screaming terror in his head. _Remember your training, cavalier. This is why you exist. This is what you are for. Your duty, and more than your duty. Your reason for living. Give your necromancer what he needs._

Cold crawls up his arm, from where Sid’s fingers press to his. Cold, and less than cold, darker, deeper; the absence of energy, the absence of life. Sid is draining his life out of him, using it to fuel his magic and send the skeleton through the manipulations needed to achieve their objective. Jack’s breath catches in his throat, his heart pounding in his chest before it inexorably starts to slow. His instincts say to fight, to get away, to protect himself—but his training and the steady drain of his strength into Sid’s hands keep him still.

“Almost,” he hears Sid saying, his voice a thousand miles away, on the opposite shore of a roaring ocean echoing in Jack’s ears. “Almost got it, Jack, I promise.”

Jack doesn’t care, at this point. He’s detached from all that, drifting in the ocean now, the pain so complete it doesn’t matter anymore. This is why he was born, to give Sid what he needs. Of course it’s the only way he could die.

Then it stops, and the sudden change is its own kind of pain, knocking him ass over teakettle back to himself, where Sid is kneeling over him, touching his face, ordering him to wake up, to breathe. They’re both covered in grit and nasty, fouled ash that burns where it touches his skin. The plastique, he realizes after a moment. The bomb went off.

“It didn’t work?” he asks, his voice a raw rasp, something dragged over stones.

Sid shakes his head, jaw clenched tight. “We’ve got to get out of here. I already called for an extraction.”

“What about the advance, we need that power grid to—”

“We’re going to have to pull the whole unit out and try again from somewhere else.” Sid drags his hand down Jack’s chest, lingering over his heart, then takes him by the hand again. “Can you stand? We really do need to get out of here.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Jack drags himself to his feet, powering through the full-body ache on the strength of his training. He hates the Eighth House with everything in him, but credit where it’s due, they made sure he had what he needed to get through the shit they’re sending him into.

Sid supports him on one side, and they limp back toward the extraction zone. Jack draws his sword with his free hand, holding it at a halfhearted defensive angle. Nothing should be able to come at them from here, but if anything does, he’ll die protecting Sid, like he promised.

“Put that away and concentrate on walking,” Sid mutters in his ear. “You’re not getting martyrdom today.”

“I’ll be a martyr when I damn well please.” It’s petty and childish and it makes Sid snort, but it keeps Jack moving his feet, at least, the rest of the way back to the zone of salvation.

**

They both have official reprimands entered in their records for failing to achieve their objective. Jack manages not to roll his eyes in their captain’s face, which is something. Sid’s nostrils flare and he clenches his jaw so much Jack hears his teeth grind. 

“Do you need a neck rub?” he asks, once they’re dismissed and retreat back to their quarters. “Because the tendons were standing out like… I don’t even know. Don’t pretend that didn’t hurt.”

“Shut up.” Sid stomps over to the closet and starts stripping off his uniform. 

“Just offering.” Jack turns away and strips down as well, dumping his grays over a chair instead of hanging them up. He’ll deal with that later. 

When he’s down to his boxers, he flops down on the bottom rack in the bunk, sighing deeply as the tension slowly starts to drain out of him. He still aches all over from Sid siphoning from him, plus standing at attention in the meeting, plus the double punishment run he had to do for letting his armor get damaged. Life in the Emperor’s service.

After a few minutes, he realizes he hasn’t felt the bunk shake as Sid climbs up into his own rack. Right. Of course not. 

“Sid,” he says, throwing his forearm over his eyes. It always seems to be easier for Sid when Jack’s not looking right at him while he dithers about it. “Just get over here already.”

“You need to rest, I don’t want to bother you.”

“I’ve told you a million times, it doesn’t bother me.” Jack takes a deep breath, lets it go, waits to feel the mattress shift as Sid crawls in with him.

There it is.

“I’m your cavalier,” he reminds him, shifting toward the wall to make room for Sid’s body. They still fit together like a hilt in a hand, a hand in a glove, a bone in its socket. “Remember, dumbass?”

Sid’s laugh is a soft huff of breath, and he reaches back to find Jack’s hand and pull his arm around him. “Shut up, Jack.”

Jack closes his eyes and holds him tight, hearing their vow in their heartbeats, one flesh, one end.


End file.
